


Welcome to Fourth Year! (Again)

by ChipAndDealer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But I love it so here we are, F/M, Game Master Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter Has a Saving People Thing, Harry really hates 4th year, Harry's just gotta get over all his friends being dead, Harry's so tired you guys, Just normal things, This'll be a comedy eventually I swear, Time Travel, Time Travelling Harry Potter, Time travel as a metaphor for fanfiction, not a big deal, you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28030341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipAndDealer/pseuds/ChipAndDealer
Summary: Hermione pointed straight up, and as all eyes followed that direction, the gathered Champions couldn't shake the feeling of watching an execution, every gaze glued to the guillotine moments before it comes crashing down.There, wedged between the Welsh Green's horns right on top of its vicious, fire breathing, teeth gnashing head, was the golden egg Fleur needed to proceed.A single word ran through the head of every person watching."Merde," Fleur muttered.Close enough.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 43





	1. Young man, there's no need to feel down

**Author's Note:**

> It's distinctly possible I enjoy time travel too much.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy this series about time travel.
> 
> EDIT: Accidentally posted this without marking it as multiple chapters, whoops. Here, take another chapter as apology.

Wizard parties, where the music was loud, the magic was beautiful, and drinks were downed like they could fill some void left by departed friends and family. But no one wanted to talk about that.

Harry Potter mingled, as was his duty as host, passing friend and stranger alike, meeting congratulations for a wonderful victory that felt like burnt mud in his heart, smiling and waving like some aspiring politician.

They should be celebrating, he told himself. Voldemort was dead and the war was over. He'd saved the day, got the girl, and now it was time for celebration, some epilogue on the persistence of man and hope for the future punctuated by the grim pops of champagne bottles he could never quite distinguish from the sounds a lethal spell made when it arced through the air. They had won.

So Harry smiled and nodded at the latest bland conversation and willed harder than he'd ever fought for his life, to believe that was true. That he should be holding a celebration and not a wake.

"Bloody brilliant job, mate." Cedric was dead.

"Thank you. I'm sure your parents would have been so proud." Snape was dead. Lupin was dead. Sirius was dead.

"The wizarding world owes you a great debt." Dumbledore was dead. Moody was dead. Tonks was dead.

"You've saved us all." Lavender Brown, Colin Creevey, Hedwig, Dobby, Fred Weasley, Charity Burbage-

"Harry?" Luna's voice, her hand on his shoulder, broke him from the spiral his thoughts had become. "I swear, this party gets more depressing every time."

Leave it to Luna to be exceedingly intuitive while not making any sense whatsoever. "Every time, what?"

She ignored the question, turning to the door. "Walk with me? There's something I think you should see."

Bidding a shaky goodbye to whichever half-remembered wizard was talking to him, Harry followed Luna outside into the courtyard, where already the cruel bite of an English Winter was making itself known.

"You don't want to join the party?" He asked, using a warming charm to help stave off the cold that his thin T-shirt failed to protect him from. "I know Ginny was looking for you earlier."

"Stand right here," Luna commanded, pointing at a specific spot on the patio. "Tilt your head up, and open your mouth."

"Luna, what is this all about?" He groaned, helplessly. Luna was one of the strongest, bravest, people he had ever met, but no one could deny, interactions with her could be trying.

She folded her arms across her chest. "Are you going to do it, or not?" The slight sting of challenge in her voice set him on edge, but they'd been testing everyone for glamours and polyjuice on the way in, and for all her strangeness, Luna had never hurt Harry.

He did as she said, stood on the spot, opened his mouth, and after waiting for a minute or two, a single snowflake flew through the air and landed precisely on his tongue. He finally looked back at her as she leaned against a rock with that airy expression on her face she used so often. "How did you do that?"

"Tomorrow," she explained breezily as more snowflakes began to fall, "you'll wake up next to Ginny and cry for everyone you've lost. She'll comfort you, and with the help of her and your friends, you'll get through it and learn to accept everything that's happened." She sighed, looking away. "It's... the way things are supposed to be."

Harry felt numb at the words by then. Some variation of them had been given to him many times over by the people he knew, after all. "I know," he said, hollowly.

"No," she answered back, steel in her voice he'd only heard before when she'd fought against the Death Eaters. "You don't." She pointed at the spot he was standing on, the one she'd indicated before. "I knew that snowflake would fall there, because it falls in the exact same place in that moment, every time I'm there, I've seen it, and I've seen you get past the deaths of the people you loved the same way."

"You're a seer?" Harry had firsthand experience from Trelawney that seers were real, but didn't they never remember their prophecies? For that matter, weren't they not as straightforward as that? Unless something in Luna's not-making-sense and a prophecy's not-making-sense, somehow cancelled each other out. That'd certainly be convenient.

"No, I don't think I am." She gave a sort of half-shrug. "I'm really not sure what I am, actually. Something new, I suppose."

Harry scratched his head, looking around for some sort of Luna to English translator, but finding no one. "You're not making a lot of sense."

"Yeah, I'm stalling, I'm afraid. It's terribly rude of me," she admitted.

His eyebrows furrowed. "Stalling for what?"

"I guess at this point, it's just cold feet. I've never really committed to being cruel before, but it's got to be done." Before Harry could ask for clarification on what she meant, yet again, her next words slammed into him. "I have a way you can save them. All those people that died, I can do it, you know."

"Luna, I know you wouldn't joke about this, so please explain very carefully how to bring them back." Harry's voice was terse, stressed by the cold and emotion surging in his skin. Luna was strange, she was anomalous, somehow, even amongst wizards. He didn't know how, but if she said she had a way to bring them back, he believed her.

She scratched the back of her head, looking away with an expression that seemed almost embarrassed? "That's sort of the thing, actually. It's quite easy for me, by now. I've done it before, in fact. But... I won't."

"You won't bring them back?" It was difficult for him to tell, but Harry felt like he was hyperventilating. "Why?"

She threw her hands up in the air, frustration leaking into her voice. "Because I've done it before. I've saved every last person, stopped Voldemort before the second war can even begin. I've taken you along and watched you do it yourself, and everyone's so howdy-doody happy and it's so boring." She ground her foot into the floor at that, like willing it so could crush the word flat.

"Saving my friends, the people I love..." Harry tilted his head, feeling bile rise in his throat, "is boring?"

"I hate being cruel," she pouted, bringing one hand up and snapping her fingers.

Harry was struck by an intense, nauseating vertigo for a fraction of a second, then he was in the Department of Mysteries. Curses were flying, the stench of burning sank in the air, and he recognized it: the room with the Veil, Sirius dueling Bellatrix. This was where he died. "But, how?"

Luna stood beside him, failing to force back a yawn. "You can save him, if you want."

Before he could even acknowledge the words, his feet were moving, sprinting toward Bellatrix, firing curse after curse at her, and focused as she was on Sirius, she fell to the onslaught. Sirius grinned at him, then changed targets and began trading hexes with another Death Eater.

"Brilliant," Luna cheered, sarcastically. "Do it again." She snapped her fingers and he was back, right where she'd brought him before.

He ran forward, he was ready this time, and it didn't take half as many curses to bring her down as before.

"Do it again." Luna snapped her fingers.

Time Turners were miraculous. There wasn't even anything close to them in the muggle world, but this?

"Do it again."

He'd stayed up late, countless nights with Hermione, seeing if there were some way, some chance of going back and stopping Voldemort before he could rise to power.

"Do it again."

It was impossible.

"Do it again."

A cabal of Ministry Unspeakables, given the finest ritual components, one thousand years, and shots of felix felicis like it was happy hour in a college town wouldn't be able to figure out the mechanics of true, unrestricted, time travel.

"Do it again."

They wouldn't even be able to produce a blueprint.

"Do it again."

To have Luna accomplish it so easily, bringing them back to the same moment over and over again with nothing more than a snap of her fingers?

"Do it again."

It was nothing less than absurd.

"Do it again."

He did it again. He saved Sirius over and over again, as his progress constantly reset. Sometimes he would fail, the next he'd redouble his efforts and succeed, but both were washed away to time, nonetheless.

His head ached, his vision swam, yet still he heard the words.

"Do it again."

A snap of her fingers, and they were back.

How many times did he save him, Harry wondered. Hundreds? Thousands? If he gave up, would it matter?

The grip on his wand tightened. No. "I'll never stop," he promised, to himself, to Luna, he wasn't sure, but the words burned with certainty. "As many times as it takes. I won't give up."

"Maybe not," Luna acknowledged, snapping her fingers once more. With that nauseating vertigo, the strange warping feeling, they were somewhere else.

It was a muggle home, with clouds and plants colored on the walls and bookshelves adorning everywhere else. It was clean, but not clinical, and seemed strangely familiar despite Harry being sure he'd never set foot inside the place.

"But it wasn't fun, was it?" Luna completed her thought from before, returning from what was apparently the kitchen with a glass of milk. "It was necessary, or at least you felt like it was, but there was nothing to it, just a means to an end you had no way of knowing would ever come. Like a chore, just... boring." She looked around the room they were in, a living room with several worn in couches and a coffee table in the center with a variety of crayons and coloring pages. "Nice place," she noted, and before Harry could respond, she tilted her glass of milk onto the carpet, spilling it everywhere.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Harry hissed. "We don't live here." He reached for his wand to clean up the mess, but his hands met empty air. Wordlessly, Luna passed him a roll of paper towels, and he began cleaning it by hand. "What happened to my wand?"

"Oh, it's gone." She furrowed her eyebrows. "Erased, I suppose. To make a point."

"And the point is?" Thankfully, growing up with the Dursleys gave Harry a laudable skill at getting stains out of carpet.

"What if I rewound this moment?" She asked, poising her fingers to snap once again. "What if you cleaned it all up, by hand, and I brought you back to do it again?"

"So my godfather's life is worth the same to you as a carpet." He couldn't help the words becoming a sneer as they left his mouth.

She groaned, hands on her head. "Urgh, no. Bad example." She snapped her fingers and they were on a roller coaster, strapping themselves in before it took off. "Have you ever been?" She gestured to the surroundings, somewhere in America, it seemed, but he couldn't guess where.

"No. This... I... why are you doing all this? Why won't you save them? Or let me do it, you wouldn't have to lift a finger-" She raised an eyebrow, so he amended, "well, two fingers, but that's it."

She was opening her mouth to respond, when the roller coaster started, rocketing them instantly to high speeds. After they'd reached the end, she snapped again and they were at the start. "I'm sorry, Harry. I'm making an absolute muck of this explanation, I just... you don't need to share my feelings, I don't want that; but I do want you to understand the reasons, somewhat, before I offer the deal. For all the times I've seen you, everything I've done, you've always been a friend to me, and that's part of what makes this so hard."

The rollercoaster started again, rocketing them all the way through only for Luna to restart them at the beginning.

"I don't understand," Harry cried, clutching his head in his hands. "What deal? What are you talking about?" The rollercoaster began once more, and as it ended, before Luna could send them back, he grabbed her arm. "Can we get off, please? I think I'm going to be sick."

With a nod, Luna snapped her fingers and they were outside the Burrow, quiet, serene, still. If Harry had to think of the total opposite to the coaster of before, this would have been it.

"Doing the same things, over and over again," Luna explained, softly. "No matter what it is: fighting, cleaning, riding a roller coaster, when you repeat it too much it gets boring." She sighed, sinking to her knees. "So I've saved your friends, I've saved you more times than I can count, and I'll keep doing it, too, I just wanted to spice it up this time, play a little game with you and if you win, I'll let you save them all." She held up two fingers in a snapping-ready position. "But," the fingers fell, "if you fail..."

Harry figured he already knew. "I lose them forever?"

Luna's face scrunched up in distaste. "Is that really what you think I'll do? No, you screw up badly enough, I make you play a penalty game and send you back to square one."

Harry nodded, absorbing the information now that she'd started saying something resembling coherency. "So if I keep working at it, even if I mess up, eventually I'll do it? I'll save them?"

Luna bit her lip. "You can choose to stop playing at any time. I'll drop you back home at your party and find some other way to entertain myself, but, if you don't do that, then yes. Eventually, you'll save them."

"I'll do it." Harry reached out a hand. "I was willing to take any chance to save them, even if it was half a percent, but this is guaranteed. I'll do whatever it takes."

She looked at the hand, then at him, a breeze making the burrow creak and sway in the background. In some dim corner of Harry's mind, he must have realized that the weather was far from the Winter of the party, and seemed to approach something like Summer, but facts of that nature were filed away for the time being.

This, the deal, was the only thing in front of him.

Luna smiled, and it was difficult to see through some haze of her natural disposition, but at the very center of her eyes lay something he'd only ever seen in Bellatrix Lestrange. It was undeniable, the more he looked, the more he was sure, through her eyes he could see the grasslands of her soul, and the cold viper twisting in the brush could only be madness.

Such a small thing, in so big a field, but like a snake, spotting madness nearby does not grant relief that you avoided danger, but fear that countless more lay dormant all around you, hidden by the grass.

She shook his hand, and he felt that warping of the world around him, twisting even before the snap of her fingers.

He was in Hogwarts, the great hall, but there was no food on the table, and from the silence in the room, it could have only been one of many announcements, nearly every one of which Harry recalled ending badly for him. It was only when he turned to the front of the room and saw the large ornate goblet casting an azure hue around the room with its blue flame that the true depth of his situation came to him.

"The Durmstrang Champion is Victor Krum," a once more living, breathing, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore announced, reading the paper that came from the cup.

"Oh, no." Harry muttered.

Hermione nudged him in the side, leaning in to whisper, "what's wrong?"

"I really hate this year," he couldn't stop himself from answering.

Dumbledore continued, oblivious to the disaster Harry already knew was incoming. "The Champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour."

Hermione's eyebrows furrowed as she slipped into her classic 'puzzle solving' mindset. "What's so bad about Victor Krum being the Durmstrang Champion?" She asked. "I'm sure Hogwarts has plenty of qualified students who can match him in the tournament."

"That's really not my point," Harry answered, already feeling exhausted.

Dumbledore pressed on. "The Hogwarts Champion: Cedric Diggory."

Harry felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned around to see Luna, thirteen once again, just as he had apparently regressed to fourteen, and dressed in Ravenclaw robes. "Welcome to round one, Harry. This one should be pretty simple: just make sure Cedric Diggory survives to the end of the Tournament, simple as that."

Nearly everyone watched the Goblet as it sparked and sputtered, with curiosity, but Harry could only look upon it with dread. The name fired out of it, and Harry began rising out of his chair, resigned to his fate.

Dumbledore stared down at the note, quizzically for a moment, muttering something, then turning in Harry's direction just like Harry remembered. Except, "Hermione Granger," was what came out of his mouth.

"Oh, I might have forgotten to mention," Luna admitted, giggling. "I changed a few things around this time."

Hermione stiffly rose from her chair, absolutely mortified as she walked down the aisles assaulted by the stony silence in the triumvirate of student bodies, broken only by the shouting of 'cheat' that visibly made her flinch.

"Good luck, chosen-boy." Luna patted Harry on the back. "I can already tell, you're gonna need it."

Harry cupped his hands to his face and groaned.

He really, really, hated fourth year.


	2. She'll make you live her crazy life, oh she'll take away your pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all the Champions in 4th year, honestly. Really wish they had more of an impact on things, but then, that's why I'm here.
> 
> Well, them and Moody, but he's not important right now.

There were often times in Harry Potter's life, where he found himself wondering what parade of strange circumstances had landed him in whatever problems or trials he currently faced, and how if he were a bit luckier, or a bit unluckier, he could have avoided them completely.

When he was a baby, and Voldemort chose him as the subject of prophecy, how would it have been if he had chosen someone else, or perhaps chosen him and succeeded, letting his mother live and having Harry die in his place. A morbid thought, but if such were to occur, each event that happened afterward would have been irrevocably different.

Similarly, his stay with the Dursleys, while practically as unlucky as Harry could have guessed, did come to an eventual end with the revelation that he was a wizard, and while if he had been luckier, he may never have met the Dursleys at all, if he were unluckier, a simple muggle whose parents died in a car crash, it was highly unlikely that he would have needed to experience death and tragedy on the level that he did.

In that sense, luck, good and bad, were less a matter of reality and more perspective. The ability to wish for something different from what you had predicated on not knowing where that particular path would have landed you.

For better or for worse, his experiences, his 'luck,' made him what he was, and to experience something else would have made him a different person.

Still, it was difficult not to acknowledge that the luck that created those particular circumstances that led to the resurrection of Voldemort, murder of Cedric Diggory, and subsequent torture and fight for his life in a dark graveyard in fourth year were something particularly abominable.

So when Harry found himself back in fourth year, at the mercy of Luna's discretion, the beginning of her game, he couldn't shake the feeling that new circumstances were at that very moment arranging themselves into unpleasant scenarios he would have to face by the end of the year no matter what choices he made: like being woven into a wicker box and seeing every twist, yet knowing he could do nothing but shut his eyes to the feeling of being enclosed.

But then, curiously enough, Harry thought of Exploding Snap.

Exploding Snap, for anyone not of a wizarding persuasion, was a game for two to eight players that required a series of matching cards together before any of the ones in your hand grew hot and eventually exploded in a harmless, but surprising effect. It was a game Harry had been introduced to in his first year at Hogwarts, and subsequently played nearly six hundred games to completion in the years since.

And while any portion of strategy or luck that the game required was something Harry found himself utterly abysmal at, there was another aspect to the game that earned him some annoyance whenever he used it to win. That being, that within the faces, movements, and expressions of each player, Harry grew to have an understanding what cards they had in hand, and which they wanted to get rid of before the cards ultimately exploded.

It was in this method, in securing the cards his opponents wanted to keep and denying their opportunity to lose dangerous cards, Harry secured victory in a good number of games, for all that the victories did him in any wider sense.

Still, here was a game with binding rules, circumstances arranged by luck, locking him in, that he still managed to prevail in with the help of one fact: his opponents had goals that Harry could read.

A shaft of light shone through the wicker box.

For all the strangeness surrounding Luna's abilities and the situation she'd put him in, there was something she had done her level best, despite a few issues to communicate to him, and that was 'why.' Why had she done this? Why choose him? Why fourth year, when Harry loathed it so?

She was bored.

Luna had sat across from Harry at the table and dealt out a game of exploding snap with the promise that at the end of the game, Harry would win a prize, the safety and survival of his friends, and in return he would provide Luna with an engaging game.

His victory condition for the round may have been, 'make sure Cedric survived' but on a larger scale his purpose in the game was to keep her entertained.

'Don't be boring,' was his only job.

It followed that since the only way for the game to end was for Harry to give up or succeed, as long as he was entertaining, Luna wouldn't get bored and try to push him out of the game.

Or at least, he hoped so.

As he slipped away from the gathered students, quickly retrieving his invisibility cloak and making his way into the Champion room, he could feel Luna's gaze itching at his back, even through Death's own silk.

Don't be boring. Make sure Cedric survives. Easy.

"I'm telling you, Professor Dumbledore, I didn't put my name in. I would never-" Hermione was protesting as Harry entered the room, face flushed with a cocktail of emotions, anger, embarrassment, confusion, more all feeding into her expression.

Dumbledore held up a hand, cutting off what was no doubt the latest in her assurances. "Miss Granger, I have no doubt that you have thoroughly researched the previous tournaments, and as a result know how truly dangerous they are. If some other name came out of the cup, perhaps, but not yours."

McGonagall fluttered into the room, looking just as confused and upset as Hermione did. "Miss Granger, you have my assurance we will do whatever we can to identify the perpetrator of such an ill-thought out and dangerous prank."

"I'm afraid, Minerva, that this was no prank." Alastor Moody, or at least, the man disguised as him stepped forward. "Only the work of a powerful confundus charm could have tricked the Goblet into accepting that name. I think even among the prodigal students of any of these schools, they'd struggle to match the strength needed to overpower an ancient artifact."

"But, if this is not a prank, then what purpose would getting Hermione Granger into the Tournament serve?" McGonagall had her wand in her hand, gripped tighter than Harry had ever seen outside of the Battle of Hogwarts. He'd always known she'd had a soft spot for them, but to see her fight so hard for Hermione still put a smile on his face.

"She will not be in the Tournament," Madame Maxine asserted, strength radiating from her voice. "No matter the reason for it, prank or no, this is clearly an illegal entrant and she shall not participate."

"I'm afraid she has no choice," Barty Crouch interjected, face as pale as bone. "The Goblet of Fire represents a binding magical contract. As of tonight, she is the fourth Triwizard Champion, illegal entrant notwithstanding."

During the conversation, Hermione had sunk to the floor and put her head in her hands. "Oh my god, I'm going to die," she whispered to herself.

"Not on my watch," Harry murmured invisibly beside her. She was startled for a moment, but relaxed when she'd put it together who it was.

"Harry, what's going on?" She said, tersely, trying to keep her voice soft so the adults didn't hear, but unable to stop some amount of stress from leaking in.

"It's... complicated, but I'm going to explain everything to you and Ron as soon as you get out of here. The important thing is: you're not gonna die. I won't let it happen." Harry scrambled to the side as Cedric sat down in the spot he just was, reaching a hand up to lay it on her shoulder, but deciding against it at the last moment, letting it fall.

"Hey, um," Cedric hesitated. "I'm really sorry about all this. I know this wasn't really your choice, like it was for me."

Harry felt his hands clench into fists, the nails biting into his palms. For all that they were competing against each other, Cedric really was a great guy.

"Thanks," Hermione answered, miserably. "If it matters, I'm going to be far more focused on staying alive than on winning any tournament."

Cedric chuckled, a bit embarrassed. "I... had figured as much. But, hey, if either of us win, that's still a victory for Hogwarts, right?" He held up a tentative fist. "Team Hogwarts?"

Hermione gave a tiny smile, reaching up and lightly bumping his fist with her own. "Team Hogwarts."

Despite the sour tang of jealousy Harry felt in his mouth, that Cedric could have believed him so easily when Harry was the unfortunate fourth Champion, he still found himself glad that Cedric was somewhat accepting of Hermione. If he could tell them both about the three tasks at the same time, they'd be that much closer to making their way through them.

Though, how exactly Hermione was supposed to fight a dragon, Harry had no idea. It wasn't like she could use the same plan he did.

He shook his head. They'd figure it out. They always did.

"Please return to your respective dormitories," Dumbledore requested. "There will be a press event where a reporter from the Daily Prophet will talk to the Champions in two days. Until then, feel free to use the Hogwarts Grounds as welcome guests." With a nod for each of the Champions, Dumbledore bid all of them adieu.

Harry moved to the back, to avoid discovery as everyone in the room slowly filed out. For the teachers, they had achieved what was no doubt the work of tireless months putting together the tournament and having a Champion they believed in. For the Champions, the opportunity for fortune and glory was right in front of them, waiting for a skillful flick of the wand or clever plan to bring about victory. For Harry, the chance to undo one of his greatest regrets had been handed to him in such a miraculous way he'd never thought it would come to pass.

Yet as they left the cramped back room of the teacher's entrance to the Great Hall, each of their dreams nearly at the height of fruition, not a single face among them looked happy.

"Though none of that is my fault," Luna remarked, idly. "They would've been unhappy either way."

Harry gave a start at her sudden appearance, spinning around to see her leaning against one wall, still as the hands on a broken clock. "How long have you been there?" His eyebrows furrowed as he finally processed her words. "Also, what?"

"Come on, Harry, haven't you guessed by now?" She reached a hand forward, but it passed right through him, without even the lingering cold of a ghost. "I'm not really anywhere." Two hands shoved him on the back, and when he turned to see, Luna was standing there with hands on her hips and a vaguely satisfied expression on her face. "Or maybe I'm really everywhere. The difference is smaller than you might think."

"Is this just what you're going to do now?" Harry hissed from the floor as he replaced the glasses on his face. "Come in at inopportune times and rub how easy it would be for you to save our friends in my face?"

"Sheesh, I'll bring some cupcakes next time, grumpy." She said with an exceedingly mature sticking out of her tongue and blowing a raspberry. "And what are you mad at me for? All your friends are back, you're just playing to keep them that way." Harry didn't really have much of a response to that, so she continued. "You're not the fourth Champion, no one thinks you're a cheat, Cedric, Sirius, Lavender freaking Brown, they're all alive. So lighten up, already." She winked. "It is a game, after all."

With a snap of her fingers, Luna vanished, leaving Harry in the empty room.

There were many thoughts that went through Harry's head since Luna had arrived on that wintry night to present him with a deal, but among those, the idea that he should 'lighten up,' was not one of them, just as the idea that no matter what consequence the game had, Luna was correct that Sirius was alive, and even saving his Godfather from the clutches of evil and death over and over ad nauseum was no replacement for a simple conversation.

So before he went to the Gryffindor common room and explained to Ron and Hermione what was going on, before he could talk to Cedric about the tasks to come, before he could even wonder if he should, Harry penned a letter to Sirius asking to talk over floo, and gave it to one of the less recognizable school owls to deliver.

That task completed, Ron and Hermione really did deserve some kind of explanation.

So in the Gryffindor common room, long after everyone was supposed to be in bed, Harry entered and was immediately accosted by his two friends.

"Mate, what's going on?" Ron asked, visibly distressed, just as Hermione joined in with, "why would Voldemort want to target me?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I never said it was Voldemort."

Hermione scoffed because, honestly, "who else would it be?"

"This is a bit awkward," Harry admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Do you know Luna Lovegood?"

Awkward was not the word Harry should have used. Awkward was discovering you had been calling a coworker by the wrong name, or that there was a bit of food stuck in your teeth during the entire conversation with someone you wanted to impress. Awkward was not discovering that a little girl one year below you had the capacity to shred any books on magical theory, not to mention history books, with incredibly implausible abilities.

Particularly when neither of them had heard of the girl in question. "Who?"

Harry went on to explain that he had lived through a sequence of events beginning with his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire, continuing on with the resurrection of Voldemort, and a variety of other adventures leading to more death and eventually the end of the war, before being offered the opportunity to play a game with the lives of his friends and loved ones as the prize.

Harry was hoping the reactions of his two comrades in arms weren't mixed.

"Are you feeling alright, Harry?"

"That's barmy, mate."

He should have hoped they were mixed.

"I'm telling the truth, here, guys," he insisted. "Listen, the First Task is going to be dragons. There's a golden egg you're gonna have to get from a dragon's nest. I used my Firebolt to get it, after the Horntail kind of broke free and smashed up part of Hogwarts. The Second Task is under the Black Lake, someone you care about is going to disappear and you'll have to retrieve them underwater. For that I used Gillyweed that Neville gave me. The Third Task is getting to the center of this enchanted hedge maze, they're building it on the Quidditch Pitch, that's why it's closed this year."

Hermione's expression reeked of skepticism, but she hadn't totally lost trust in her friend. "How did you beat that?"

Harry grimaced. "The Death Eater posing as Moody bewitched Krum and had him curse Fleur and tried to curse Cedric out of the competition. The rest was just blind luck."

Hermione looked ill. "So if I only got picked as part of this 'game,' then that means no one's going to bewitch Krum, right? There's no way I'll win the Third Task."

That was something Harry hadn't considered. "But that's okay, you don't want to win. If you picked up that Cup you'd be portkeyed to the graveyard instantly. Pettigrew would kill you."

At that, she seemed even iller. "But if it's not me, we'd be dooming someone else to die."

Harry hadn't considered that either. "We'll figure it out," he insisted. "I'll talk to Dumbledore about Moody and the cup. If it's not a portkey, that means no one dies," including Cedric. He smiled, reassuringly. "We'll get through this, okay? It'll be great."

Of course, completing the trifecta of things he hadn't considered was how exactly the conversation with Dumbledore would go, when he had only just managed to convince Hermione and Ron that something was going on, even if they were skeptical on the specifics. It was a thought that so thoroughly did not occur to him, in fact, that when he finally burst into Dumbledore's study and revealed that Moody was an imposter, the only response he expected was something on the order of, 'we'll arrest him at once,' and not-

"What makes you say that, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, quizzically. "Alastor may act a bit strange, but I can assure you his allegiance is absolute."

He had forgotten, it seemed, that oftentimes adults didn't listen to fourteen year olds, even if they happened to be right. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, it's not really Moody. It's Barty Crouch Junior, he's using polyjuice."

Dumbledore's eyebrows furrowed. "Barty Crouch Junior was supposed to have died in Azkaban prison years ago. How do you know about him?"

It was at this moment Harry found himself with a choice: either explain his unique circumstances and prior experiences while the odds were Dumbledore wouldn't believe him, or come up with some lie that may have been more believable but also might be disproven.

This was not the first time this choice had been presented to him, nor would it be the last, and in the future Harry would sometimes find himself reflecting on the decisions he'd made and wonder if, perhaps, he should have lied when he told the truth, or told the truth when he should have lied, what kind of future that would bring. But in the end, he simply didn't know.

"I know because... I've done this before. Well, not exactly this, but-"

Harry told the truth. This time.

Dumbledore listened along to the explanation, nodding along at the appropriate times until it eventually came to an end. After a minute or two's consideration, he spoke. "There is something that troubles me, if what you say is true."

"Dumbledore it is true, I swear it," Harry insisted emphatically.

"I have seen more strange and wonderful gifts of magic than you might ever believe; wizards who can turn lead into gold, witches who can blanket the night sky with such bountiful light it becomes a day, and creatures who live and breathe in environments fit to destroy anything else. Yes, Harry, I believe you. But it is because I believe you, I am troubled." Dumbledore walked to the window of his office, gazing out onto the Hogwarts grounds with a pensive expression. "If Miss Lovegood is somehow controlling this 'game' where you must keep Mister Diggory alive, it seems a rather large oversight to have this situation resolved so easily."

A sinking feeling began to form in Harry's stomach. "You think Luna would stop it from going through?"

"You would know her better than I," Dumbledore hedged. "But no, I fear her response would not be so direct. I will take care of the Death Eater and the Triwizard Cup, but you should stick close to Mister Diggory. To leave this option so utterly unprotected, I can't help but think she never intended to harm him that way in the first place."

Harry cursed as the words hit him and dashed out of the room. He had forgotten, in his rush to stop the fake Moody, that this was still Hogwarts. Between moving staircases, vicious beasts, and hex-happy students, any amount of things could kill Cedric. Even when removing the threat of any Death Eaters, Harry considered, Hogwarts really wasn't an exceptionally safe place.

Add in two other rival schools and a deadly tournament and it was a wonder it took Voldemort for someone to die last time.

Harry grimaced at how quickly his thoughts grew morbid, but he steeled himself with the knowledge that he was there to fix things, as long as Cedric wasn't-

"Oh, hey, Harry. I was just looking for you." Oh thank Merlin, Cedric wasn't dead yet.

Cedric continued, oblivious to the collection of issues and paranoia Harry was slowly accruing. "I talked to your friend Hermione about the Tournament and I was hoping to work together. You know, share information, and make sure we all get through this. I know that you and your friends have taken on some... messed up stuff, so I don't doubt what you can do, but I'd like to help anyway." He gave a beaming smile Harry could only gape at. "I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds, but even if I did think she cheated, I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night if I let a fourth year get killed 'cause I did nothing."

"Yeah, Cedric," Harry smiled weakly at the memory of the Hufflepuff leading him to the answer for the Second Task. "I know."

"I guess the only thing to do now is wait to find out what the First Task is, huh?" Cedric suggested.

"Actually," Harry offered with a mischievous smirk that could have rivaled the Weasley twins. "We don't have to wait."

There is a word for procuring an external advantage in a game not allowed in the rules: that word is cheating. Cheating is a practice frowned upon in even some of the friendliest of games, never mind large scale tournaments with a cash prize and spectators in the thousands. It is also a practice which takes some amount of skill and effort to conceal, as Harry, Cedric, Hermione, Ron, and as Cedric brought in shortly after training began to help, Cho, tried to do so, with laudable success.

They retreated to the Room of Requirement whenever their schedules aligned or occasionally on their own, to work on their strategies with no students or faculty from any of the schools achieving more than a suspicion that they might know something about the Tournament others did not.

Cedric's plan was to use his skill in transfiguration to create distractions for his dragon to follow while he went after the golden egg, and he began practicing to accomplish this goal.

Hermione's plan was to prepare a set of dragon handling gear beforehand, thankfully Ron knew where his brother Charlie bought his, and use a summoning charm to procure the gear so she could get past the dragon with relative ease. With that plan in mind, she began practicing those summoning charms to do so.

After a small break for both Champions to go to the wand weighing, then a larger break for them to complain on the repugnant state of journalism in general and Rita Skeeter in particular, the day of the First Task came with both Champions feeling nervous, but ready.

Unfortunately, while cheating is supposed to provide an unfair advantage to make winning in a game easier, the effort it takes to set up beforehand can sometimes blind those who use it to what is going on around them. In circumstances such as this, the phrase, 'cheaters never prosper,' may be used.

"Fighting dragons, almost drowning, getting lost," Luna mused behind Harry after the Champions had gone off to get ready and Ron went to find a seat, "seems less like a tournament and more like a trip to the bank, don't you think?"

Harry felt the blood drain from his expression as he whirled to face her. "Luna, please tell me you didn't."

"I mean, can you even imagine how boring they must have been to watch, before I changed them?" That flint of madness he'd seen before struck against her eyes. Before he could respond, however, she held up a tray, grinning. "Cupcake?"


	3. She's over-bored and self assured, oh no, I know a dirty word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tralalere is officially my new favorite French word. Gotta love Fleur.

If anyone had asked Bartemius Crouch Senior what the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life was, he would have said breaking his son out of Azkaban prison and keeping him locked away from prying eyes with something so abominable as an Unforgivable Curse as his chains. However, if someone had asked Barty Crouch Senior what the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life was, in a situation where the press, nosy Headmasters, or police were nearby, he would have said organizing the Triwizard Tournament.

With all the money that needed to change hands to simply get approval for the Tournament, much less pay all the dragon handlers, event organizers, transport costs, and foot the bill for the cash prize, the accounting alone was a nightmare, let alone planning the events to make sure everything ran smoothly.

Unfortunately for Barty Crouch Senior, despite his best efforts, everything did not run smoothly. If Luna believed in karmic justice, she might have said that Barty's unlawful jailbreak of his son which allowed the resurrection of the dark lord Voldemort, made him deserve the derailment of his carefully organized plans, however, not only did Luna not believe in karmic justice, but also the emotional or monetary attachment Barty Crouch Senior had to the events never crossed her mind.

He was simply in the way.

"Attention all Triwizard Tournament watchers, judges, and Champions." Luna's voice seemed to echo through the stands, even as it felt like she was whispering the words directly in each person's ear. "Due to the overwhelming support and attention these games have accrued, as well as an urgent need to not fall asleep, your normal, boring, First Tasks have henceforth been upgraded to the premium Lovegood package."

A confused murmuring echoed around the stands, while the judges and teachers scrambled to find the source of the announcement.

The voice of Luna continued, unabated. "As you Champions have known for a few weeks by now, the First Task was supposed to be simply securing a golden egg from a dragon trapped in a fairly compact arena. This was supposed to represent Durmstrang's commitment to might and grit in the face of adversity, an admirable quality, so the upgraded Task will have to reflect that."

Harry burst into the Champion's tent, meeting Hermione and Cedric almost instantly. "Harry, what's going on?" Hermione asked, as Luna's voice kept on.

"The good news, for any lucky people out there with future knowledge they were hoping could sneak them by, is that the goal is still for each Champion to retrieve their golden eggs from their respective dragons. The bad news is, the dragons aren't in the arenas anymore, and wow who knew ships and carriages could catch fire that fast?"

As the meaning of the words sunk in, the crowd shifted their direction to the massive structures Durmstrang and Beauxbatons were using for transport and temporary dorms. Both were being attacked by dragons.

"Not that Hogwarts is gonna be in much better shape," Luna carried on. "Two dragons has got to be murder on the infrastructure." The roar from the Horntail was all they needed to know where it and the Swedish Short-Snout must have gone.

"The Task is over when all Champions retrieve their eggs and return to the Champion tent, and the Task begins, well," Luna laughed, "about a minute and a half ago."

There was no stopping the four Champions as they ran out of the tent, to save their homes, however temporary, from the dragon onslaught.

Harry ran after them, but couldn't help feeling a strange itching at the back of his mind at the situation, like he was forgetting something important, or that there was one piece in a particularly difficult puzzle that didn't quite fit where he'd put it. The feeling bothered him, but as his primary goal was keeping Cedric Diggory unburned, he shoved it to the back of his mind. Whatever it was, he could deal with it later.

Probably.

It was a strange thing, seeing Dumbledore, a man he'd seen commit such startling feats of magic that it left even Voldemort flatfooted, attempt those same spells against something so simple as a dragon and have it be utterly unaffected.

As if he needed more proof of it, this confirmed his suspicion that Luna's abilities didn't end with effortless time travel. For better and almost certainly for worse, she had near total control of this 'game'.

A single cutting curse from Cedric scratched along the dragon's side where a countless number of Dumbledore's spells failed.

And Luna had added a few new rules.

"Only the Champions can damage the dragons?" Harry shouted in disbelief. "That hardly seems fair."

"Why, Harry, it's the absolute essence of fair." Luna appeared beside him, already differing his opinion and acting like she hadn't just set several dragons loose on school grounds. "What kind of tournament organizer would I be if I let every Tom, Dick, and Headmaster tip the scales for their school's Champion?"

Harry waved his wand to summon his Firebolt, whirling on Luna as he waited for it to arrive. "You're not a tournament organizer," he answered, tersely.

"Well not officially sanctioned, no." Luna waved a dismissive hand. "But after seeing how good a job I'm doing with this one, I'm sure Crouch is already drafting the paperwork to fix that."

Harry shook his head, sheer disbelief pouring off him in waves. "You're insane."

"Maybe. But I'm not the one about to fly toward a wild fire-breathing dragon I can't hurt, with no plan, so you've lost a bit of the high ground, there," she countered, easily.

Harry froze at the words, even as his Firebolt flew to him. The words were biting, but there was something else in them too, another emotion tucked away. She was... helping him? Why? Harry groaned. It didn't matter right then, she had a point: without a plan, he'd be dragon food in no time.

A plan, huh? He'd never really been good at those. "Hermione." She was, though. "Those dragons are rigged so only the Champions can hurt them. I'm open to any ide-uh, are you alright?"

Hermione wasn't even looking at the dragons, she was looking at, oh. She was looking at Luna. Honestly, Harry had half expected it to be only him that could see her, somehow, but Hermione had that expression again, that puzzle-solving one.

"Harry, how fast can you fly on that Firebolt?" She asked, still staring at Luna.

Harry gripped his broom tighter. "Very, but I won't be able to damage the dragon, so why-"

"There's something in the rules that doesn't make any sense." Hermione shook her head. "Or rather, something in the phrasing. Luna said that the Task was over when all Champions retrieved their egg and returned to the tent. All of them, so why make the dragons only able to be hit by one Champion?"

Like lightning shooting down his spine, the answer struck him. "Unless she didn't. Hermione try hitting the Swedish Short-Snout with something."

The blasting curse she'd fired slammed into the dragon: Cedric's dragon. "It's not just their Champion that can hit them," Hermione realized.

"It's any Champion. Hermione, work with Cedric. I'm going to get the others." He shot one last look at Luna as he mounted the broom. "This Task just became a team game."

Luna gave a mildly sarcastic goodbye wave, grinning all the while, before snapping her fingers and disappearing.

Without any preamble, Harry flew off toward Victor and Fleur like a particularly stressed rubberband.

The good news was, locating them wasn't difficult. The bad news was, that was because of all the dragons.

"Krum." Harry flew under a particularly harmful looking Chinese fireball from the Chinese Fireball before coming to a stop hovering beside the Bulgarian Champion. "Only the Champions can hurt the dragons. We'll need to work together to take them down."

Viktor scowled as he dove away from the newest scorching blast. "And who are you to gather us? Some spy from Hogwarts."

He didn't say the words with any cruelty, and surprisingly little paranoia as well, it was pragmatic only, requiring some statement of intention.

"We'll do Hogwarts last," Harry shouted, flying out of range of a particularly vicious tail swipe. "I'm not interested in anyone in Hogwarts winning the Tournament, just surviving it. Besides, do you really want to be the person who let your ride home burn down?"

Viktor nodded, expression serious, but tone less guarded. "What would you have me do?"

"Grab your broom and pick up Hermione Granger, the fourth Champion. Bring her to the Beauxbatons chariot. Cedric and I will meet you there." Harry considered for a moment, movements flitting through his head as his experience leading Dumbledore's army came to the fore. "Do you have a spare broom? A fast one."

"I am a lone Quidditch Seeker, far from home." Viktor smirked, summoning a long black case to his hands and clicking it open to reveal twin Firebolts side by side in a condition that could only have been described as stunning. "Of course I bring extra."

Like darts, arcing through the air toward some impenetrable target, Harry and Viktor soared toward the nigh untouchable dragons, meeting Cedric and Hermione on the ground. Viktor lifted the latter onto the back of his broom while Harry threw the spare broom to the former, and within half a minute, they were already off again, soaring to the Welsh Green, to Fleur.

Though she was a prospective sister in law if Harry married Ginny, honestly he hardly knew anything about her. About Fleur, he meant. He wasn't implying he didn't know much about Ginny, that was. That was ridiculous.

Harry shook the thought from his head.

The point was, beyond a few passing words at Weasley family events, Harry only knew Fleur from the Tournament, where she could be...

"Tralalère, the 'Ogwarts contingent 'as come to fix their mistake. Only fifteen minutes late," she growled, sarcastically, as Harry and the three Champions landed beside her.

Abrasive was a word Harry thought fit well.

"The Task only started four minutes ago," Cedric pointed out, apparently having missed the fact that wasn't the point.

"That isn't the point," Fleur snapped.

Exactly.

Fleur gestured aggressively at the Welsh Green currently scratching at the top of the enormous carriage's ornate roof. "'Ow are you going to fix this?"

"It would take many dragon handlers to take down a single dragon," Viktor shook his head. "I do not see how four students can take down four."

Harry slapped a hand to his forehead, that niggling thought from before finally making sense. "We don't need to take them down, we just need their eggs. The Task is over when all the Champions have their eggs and return to the tent, right? No Task means no protection on the dragons. After that, the handlers and Headmasters can handle it."

"Bien," Fleur acknowledged. "But where is the egg?"

"Uh," Cedric raised a hand, uncomfortably. "Hermione and I actually know where the eggs are, but I don't think you're gonna like it."

By the look on Hermione's face, he was right. She pointed straight up, and as all the eyes followed that direction, the gathered Champions couldn't shake the feeling of watching an execution, every gaze glued to the guillotine moments before it comes crashing down.

There, wedged between the Welsh Green's horns right on top of its vicious, fire breathing, teeth gnashing head, was the golden egg Fleur needed to proceed.

A single word ran through the head of every person watching.

"Merde," Fleur muttered.

Close enough.


	4. And if you follow there may, be a tomorrow but if, the offer's shunned, you might as well be walking on the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The office of the Dealer would like to remind all involved that jumping from one broom to another at high speeds is not advised or endorsed by any member of the department.

In Harry's original fourth year, a memory that seemed to grow more distant with every new cataclysm Luna seemed intent on bringing, Fleur Delacour was always on the fringes of the Tasks. It was amazing for someone as noticeable as she was, but between getting burned by her dragon, captured by Grindylows, and hexed by Krum, she ended up dead last in every Task, so from a strategic standpoint she didn't really matter. If it weren't for Bill marrying her, Harry would have figured Fleur would be yet another person flitting into his life, then out again never to be seen again.

But then, if it weren't for Luna, he figured he'd never see her like this again, either.

When Fleur was with Bill, she was different. In love, he supposed. She would sweep the front step and bake a pie to set on the windowsill like some caricature of a sixties housewife. She was nice, she seemed happy, but...

"One of you with the brooms, get me to that egg," she ordered, firing a glare at the dragon that could have melted steel. "We 'ave a Task to win."

She was just different, that's all.

"I can take you up there," Krum offered. "But would it not be easier for me to fly there on my own?"

"Too easy," Harry shook his head, the unfortunate bangs he had in fourth year getting into his eyes. "I'd bet anything, only the dragon's Champion can take their egg." Harry hadn't pinned down everything about Luna's motives yet, but her style was plain to see.

"Whatever we do, could we do it with speed?" Fleur snapped, eyeing the state of the Beauxbatons carriage. "I fear the roof will not survive long."

In short order, Fleur was on the back of Krum's broom, Hermione on the back of Harry's, and Cedric already in the air looking like a socked-up Dobby with that new Firebolt.

The thought of Dobby sent a twinge through his heart, as well as another of those troublesome feelings like he'd forgotten something important. Maybe he'd invest in a remembrall at some point, see if that was actually what the feeling meant.

"Okay, Hermione and Cedric, we're going to fly close to the dragon and lay off some fire near the head to try and grab its attention. Once we've got it, Krum and Fleur, go for a swoop. If you can't get it in one swoop, try again, I don't want to see anyone hovering that close to a dragon's mouth, got it?" Harry got four assenting nods in response, and like that he was in the air, barreling toward the Welsh Green, like Cedric's life depended on it.

Oh, wait.

Blasting curses from Hermione and cutting curses from Cedric rained down on the monstrous lizard, finally tearing its attention away from the Beauxbatons carriage.

Unfortunately, that meant its attention was redirected to the three very flammable schoolchildren on equally flammable brooms.

Forget dragons, the true bane of Harry's existence always seemed to be fire. Dragonfire, Fiendfyre, Voldemort using fire, the Goblet of Fire, as an element, fire was definitely out to get him.

Harry dropped twenty feet straight down, with Hermione screaming all the while, as the plume of fire from the dragon sailed overhead. He wished he could say something along the lines of 'just like Quidditch against the Slytherins,' to calm her down, but beyond the immediate threat of grievous bodily harm, this event shared few commonalities with that.

Twisting, dropping, accelerating so quickly even he felt like throwing up, and keeping Cedric in the corner of his eye all the while as he did the same to avoid the dragon, Harry flew.

What did Luna say would happen if Cedric died before the end of the Tournament? He'd have to play a penalty game? What did that even mean? Honestly, though, if facing these dragons like this was Luna's idea of a good time, he didn't want to find out.

Like a hawk diving for a mouse, Fleur finally plucked the egg from the dragon's head.

The dragon noticed.

Harry didn't know why, but some part of him had expected the Welsh Green to simply vanish when the egg was retrieved, sucked back into the cage Luna had retrieved it from, or maybe erased from time entirely, somehow, like apparently she could do. When the dragon not only persisted, but began actively pursuing Fleur and Viktor, Harry's mind sort of short-circuited for a moment.

"Go. Fly to Krum's dragon." Thankfully, Cedric's was still online as he shouted after the fleeing pair of visiting students. "It's the same plan, we just have to do it again."

'Do it again,' the words echoed in Luna's voice through Harry's mind, making him shudder.

"Wow, because I really needed more PTSD after the war," he muttered, sarcastically.

Hermione crouched closer to him. "What was that?"

"Nothing." He flew faster. "Just something I'm gonna have to deal with later."

Getting the egg from the Chinese Fireball was complicated by the fact Fleur's Welsh Green was in constant pursuit of its egg. Thankfully, a particularly nasty blast of ice right in the dragon's eye from Cedric allowed Krum to swoop in and grab it.

Rapidly teaching Hermione the sectumsempra spell while being chased by two dragons was one of Harry's most stressful moments in his seemingly rapidly shortening life, but it also gave just enough distraction for Cedric to nab his egg from the Swedish Short Snout, even as Viktor and Fleur tried keeping their dragons away. It wasn't until they flew into Hogwarts' central courtyard, however, that Harry felt genuinely sick with fear.

It was funny, he always thought, looking back on it that he had imagined the Hungarian Horntail as bigger. His wiry fourteen year old frame somehow giving the illusion that the beast was enormous. But seeing it now, golden egg embedded between horns like razor rocks jutting from the sea foam, fire already gathering in its throat, pure hatred seething from its gaze, Harry knew he hadn't imagined it to be bigger. He'd imagined it smaller.

The others couldn't help; they had their own dragons to contend with. It was just Harry and Hermione, the dragon and the egg.

They were doomed.

"Hey, Hermione," Harry began, gulping roughly. "Do you have some kind of plan for this?"

"I don't suppose if we asked this Luna Lovegood person really nicely to make it so I wasn't the Fourth Champion anymore, she'd do it?" Hermione squeaked.

They took the roar from the Horntail that seemed to rattle their very bones as an answer.

What happened next wasn't so much a plan as it was a series of panicked aerial maneuvers executed with the skill of a master quidditch player, and the drive of someone fleeing a dragon's bite.

It was more chance than any pre-coordination that brought them close enough to the dragon's head for Hermione to yank the egg roughly from its embedded perch.

So, naturally, this good luck needed to be immediately followed by an earsplitting scream nearly the same instant Hermione got her hands on the egg.

It only took a handful of moments to see a charred black figure careening out of the sky.

Cedric had been hit.

"I can't even have one? One victory?" Harry muttered darkly under his breath as his broom shot toward the swiftly falling figure, Horntail in swift pursuit. "Hermione, you're going to have to jump to Krum's broom."

If Harry had told her, at that moment, to leap into the open jaws of the Horntail, Hermione wouldn't have sounded so affronted. "What?"

"I won't be able to grab Cedric with the Horntail on me, and Krum's a better flyer anyway. He'll get you to the tent, we have to end the game." Harry insisted, throwing up a hand signal he'd seen the Gryffindor Chasers practice that meant they were going to pass the Quaffle. Wait, that wasn't like a Gryffindor only code, was it? Would Krum even understand it?

Of course, as Harry urged his broom faster, the wind clipping through his hair at nearly unbearable speeds, the chances to consider an alternate idea slipped ever further away.

"Ready?" He asked.

Hermione gritted her teeth, promising under her breath. "I'll kill you, Harry Potter."

"For some reason, people have been finding that difficult lately," he mused.

Hermione jumped.

With the load on his broom gone, Harry shot forward, scooping Cedric out of the sky, inches from the unforgiving ground.

The handling on any broom, much less a Firebolt traveling at maximum speed, was middling at best. Oftentimes it took even pro players a bit of time to slow down and readjust, which was what made the erratically moving target of the Snitch such a difficult end goal in a game like Quidditch. Which was why, as Harry slid the still smoking body of Cedric onto the broom in front of him, the idea that if Cedric were already dead Luna would have given her penalty game by then, the only way he could stomach the stinging bite of burning flesh in his nose, seeing the Swedish Short Snout opening its maw to deliver a second deadly fireball directly in Harry's travel path forced some quick thinking that rode the thin line between unorthodox and insane.

He cast the quickest summoning charm he ever had in his life at the Firebolt Cedric had been riding, before suddenly being ejected by force of dragonfire, then hoisted Cedric onto his shoulders and slid off his broom, falling several meters onto the other one.

Lee Jordan had, at one point, compiled photographs various students had taken of Harry's infamous Snitch grabs, which usually revolved around dodging painfully close to a bludger, nearly falling to his death, or some other combination of ludicrous recklessness for the sake of a school sponsored sport.

Harry wasn't sure why he thought of that at that moment, but as he slammed into the broom, flailing a hand out to grab the end so he and Cedric could bolt to the Champion's tent at inadvisable speeds, it was the only thing he could picture.

When the broom crashed into the refreshment table and Cedric hit the tent floor, all sounds of the dragons went silent, and turning around revealed nothing but empty air, like they were never even there.

"Congratulations," Luna's voice rang through the deathly quiet air. "Let's give it up for our Champions, everybody."

Like a boat cracking in half, sound flooded into the tent, the cheering, sobbing, pure relief coming from every student in all three schools.

The Champions were burnt, scratched, and with adrenal glands that might never fully recover after the experience, but they had won.

Dumbledore transported Cedric and Madame Pomfrey to the medical wing with a flash of phoenix flame, appearing only a few minutes after with the assurance that he would be alright.

The First Task was over.

Krum's firm hand landed on Harry's shoulder, Hermione already shaking at his side. "I thank you for your service in this Task. Without you, I fear I would still be casting single spells at the dragon, the Durmstrang ship long burnt away."

Fleur huffed and turned away. "Je vous suis redevable," she said simply, and walked away.

"I can't believe you made me jump." Hermione punched him in the arm and Harry dimly wondered when she'd taken boxing lessons because sweet Christmas that hurt. "But thanks for saving Cedric. I really don't want anyone to die for this ridiculous tournament."

"Me either," Harry said, trying to inject some cheer into his voice. This was the first Task, only a third into the Tournament and Cedric had nearly died. To call it 'too close' would be a legendary understatement.

How were they supposed to get through another two tasks? Particularly when Harry had no real idea what they would be. All that future knowledge wasn't worth a bottle of butterbeer if Luna could just change things at the drop of a hat.

As the Headmasters burst into the tent to congratulate the Champions, Harry slipped out the back, walking toward the castle a ways until he made it to an abandoned hallway.

"Luna," he called to the empty space. "Get out here, I want to talk."

Luna's voice came from behind him, as it always seemed to lately, edged with amusement to its usual cheery airiness. "Did somebody call for a Luna?"

"The next two Tasks, are they all going to be like this?" Harry asked, his voice unwillingly taking on a pleading cadence.

Luna raised an eyebrow, curiously. "I've changed the other two as well, but I get the feeling that's not the question you're asking."

"All this time I spent with Hermione and Cedric teaching them to prepare for the First Task and it was the wrong bloody Task." He clapped a hand to his forehead. "What was I supposed to do there? How am I supposed to keep Cedric alive when I don't have a clue what the other two Tasks are going to be?"

Luna tilted her head. "Don't you?" She tapped a finger to her chin. "I don't know about you, but I seem to recall the First Task as having each Champion secure their golden egg and return to the tent. Isn't that exactly what happened?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. "That... huh..."

"I set up this game, Harry Potter," she chastised, lightly. "The least I could do is play by the rules."

"What?" Harry took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to relieve the Luna headache as he had begun to call it. "What in Merlin's name are the rules?"

"Well now you've quite put me on the spot," she pouted. "I had wanted to keep them a secret, but as you seem desperate for answers and I'm quite proud of the way I've thought them up, I'll tell you the big three:" she cleared her throat before counting off on her fingers. "Number one, the round is over when you have firmly completed or failed your objective, nothing else factors in. Voldemort could rise, the whole school could sink into the ground, you could run away to Australia, and as long as your objective is completed, you win."

Harry nodded in acknowledgement. That did seem to be Luna's style with how she made the dragon's disappear at the end of the First Task. The game was the only thing important to her, any cleanup afterwards was inconsequential.

"Numero dos," she held up two fingers. "All changes I make to the world happen at the moment I put you in, no adjusting things on the fly because it suits my fancy. The Goblet, the Tasks, I already made all those edits and I won't be changing them until the end of the round, no matter what happens before then."

That was strangely comforting. The thought that if Harry made any sizable progress in whatever newest hurdle Luna put in his way she'd just make a new one, was almost enough to make him give up on ever completing her little game.

"The third rule is simple," she reached up and tapped him on the nose. "I can't set it up so there's no way for you to win, obviously that wouldn't be fair. Every round has at least one path through to the conclusion; you just have to find it."

Harry nodded, eyebrows furrowed as he considered the three rules. "So you can't break any of these rules, or... what? What's the penalty?"

"If you can ever point out my breaking one of those rules, then you win the round, no questions asked." She held out a hand, but Harry shook his head no.

"If I figure out you've broken a rule, I win the game, period. No take-backs," he pressed, holding out a hand of his own.

Luna considered for a moment, then nodded, taking the hand. "They're my rules anyway, what reason would I have to break them?" She paused, then, looking out into the middle distance, then stepped away. "The point is, this round at least, the Tasks are an echo of what you remember. As long as you train them for the essence of the tests, you should be golden." She smiled, brightly. "Besides, it's not like you don't have any clues."

Harry furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

She snapped her fingers, vanishing without a sound, though Harry did imagine her smile staying behind a second longer, like she'd been replaced by the Cheshire Cat.

Though, come to think of it, maybe she had.

She was so... different, sadistic and blithely cruel, yet there were moments he could see the Luna he knew shine through. So, what, was there some evil entity that had possessed Luna somehow like Voldemort tried to do to him, or was this really who Luna was after who even knew how long traveling through time?

He wished he could believe she was truly evil, see her as nothing more than another Dark Lord to take down, but that just didn't feel right. If Voldemort was in her position, those wouldn't be the rules he'd use. No consequences, no diabolus ex machina, no impossible scenarios? If he lost, it wouldn't even be the end of the game, she wanted him to prevail, to overcome. It was less like she was truly evil and more like she was playing the villain. Pretending to be cruel for the sake of it.

A brightly colored, obviously tropical, bird flew through one of the castle's many open windows and landed on Harry's arm, extending a leg with a letter attached. Harry's heart warmed at the sight and he wasted no time taking the letter and unrolling it.

"Hey, Harry, it's your old pal Padfoot," the letter began. "Heard about your friend getting picked as one of the Triwizard Champions, real nasty business. The First Task is supposed to be today, right? I wish her all the luck I can on it. I'm sure she won't need it, though, she's an exceptionally bright young witch. One little Tournament won't be enough to take her down. Still, meet me in the Gryffindor common room one o'clock this Saturday night. We need to talk face to face."

Harry quirked an eyebrow at the letter, wondering. Hearing from Sirius again felt like the grip around his lungs had loosened and he could finally breathe once more, but the message was different from the first time, so much lighter. He'd even sent one of those tropical birds instead of the biting owl he had rented somewhere. Was the Ministry not monitoring communications as harshly this time? But why-

The paper crinkled in his grip.

Rule two, all changes to the world were made at the beginning. Not changes to the Tournament, to the world. Luna had protected his Godfather from the Ministry.

A small smile tugged at his lips.

Playing the villain, indeed.

The image of Cedric's burnt and smoking body plummeting to the ground ripped the smile from his face.

She did that. It didn't matter if she kept a few government goons off his godfather's back. At the end of the day, she was willing to sacrifice Cedric, a living breathing human being, to a dragon for no other reason than amusement in a game.

Playing the villain or not, she was incredibly dangerous and Harry couldn't forget that. If Cedric were to survive the Tournament, if Harry were to survive the game, he needed to be sure he never forgot.

Still, it was nice to think even a sadistic, quasi-deific, witch cared about him enough to protect his godfather. It made him think maybe he'd get through the game after all.

Had his life always been this complicated?

Maybe not, but it had always been complicated in some way, as far back as he could remember. This was just the latest in a long parade of complications his life saw fit to bestow upon him.

As he walked into the Gryffindor common room and the monstrous party already in full swing celebrating Hermione's victory, he did consider that this complication was a bit stronger than most of his other ones, though.

"You want me to open it?" Hermione called out, hoisting the golden egg in the air even as she herself was being hoisted.

"Don't open it," Harry called out, remembering viscerally the sound it made the first time around. Unfortunately, as his voice became swallowed in the sea of cheers, he barely had enough time to clap his hands over his ears before Hermione opened the egg, the horrible sound tearing through the crowd, because obviously Luna wouldn't change that much.

One party cleanup, one getting a far more inebriated than he'd ever known her Hermione into bed, and one floo call later, Harry was finally alone in the Gryffindor common room with his dead godfather he hadn't spoken to in years.

And he realized, he had no idea what to say.

Sirius Black's face crackled in the fireplace while Harry's mouth opened ever wider, like the gap itself could produce words if it were big enough

"Harry?" Sirius said. "Harry are you there?"

Finally, the prodding forced Harry out of the void that had become his thoughts and into a chair where it felt like he could start breathing again. "Sirius, yes-yeah, I'm... I'm here," he eventually said, though what he really meant was, 'you're here.'

Alive.

"Harry, I've been fighting Voldemort for so long now I usually have some idea when he's up to something. This Tournament, Igor Karkaroff, Barty Crouch, the more I heard the more worried I'd become he'd try to make some kind of attack on you during it, but this? Hermione's name coming from the Goblet? Changing the Task that way? I'm at a complete loss what he's trying to do, and that worries me more than I can describe."

There were many things Harry could have answered this with, Voldemort's true plan, Luna's intervention, the future, the past, the truth, a lie, but the words he found tumbling from his lips were much simpler. "I missed you."

Sirius paused. "Harry?"

"You always believed in me, always treated me like a person instead of some stupid kid, knew there were things I needed to hear instead of trying to hide it from me, because like it or not, I was part of the fight, too. It feels like even when I got older the only way most people saw me was as Lily and James' kid, and that... that's not enough." Harry's hands clenched into fists, tightening so much the fingernails dug into his palms. "You're the only adult that tried to get to know, well, me, and then you were gone."

"Harry, it's only temporary until we find Pettigrew and clear my name..." Sirius started to say, sounding some mixture of pleased and confused.

"Yeah," Harry choked out a half-laugh at the thought of his deal with Luna. "It's only temporary." He'd save him, no matter what it took.

"I think a lot of adults get buried under concerns they think their children would never understand, without considering that it's in childhood most of those concerns are created." Sirius sighed. "Worries about performance in school turn to worries about performance at work. Relationship issues turn to relationship troubles. Arguments turn to fights, and so many parents and teachers think they need to shield the kids from all of these things without teaching them any way to deal with them. Maybe it's because I wasn't far off from being a kid before getting locked up, I see things differently than a lot of others, but I can tell you if you're annoyed people aren't telling you anything, I only know two ways to go about fixing it: you either become serious and dedicated, get smart, study hard, and never goof off to the point adults start acknowledging you as some kind of equal, that was Lily's preferred method, or you go the other direction, pull pranks, crack jokes at inappropriate times, talk back, get loud and basically act as childish as you can playing games and making fun, that adults start telling you what you need to know just to shut you up." Sirius grinned from the fireplace. "I don't think I need to tell you, that's what your dad liked to do."

Harry blinked at his godfather's words. "So my two options are, try to act as adult as possible, or try to act as childish as possible?"

"In nearly any given situation, yes," he confirmed.

Well, he considered. He was already an adult, mentally, because of time travel. There was no sense in complicating things unnecessarily. Acting like an adult had already gotten Dumbledore to believe him about Luna and Moody, so he'd just continue that trend.

"Well, you won't have to worry about Voldemort's involvement here," Harry assured him. "I know what's going on and he's got nothing to do with it."

"What is going on?" Sirius pressed, a bit impatiently.

"It's... a bit complicated," he hedged. "I'd really rather talk about something else right now."

Sirius shrugged, the action visible even through the floo. "Alright. If you say it's not Voldemort, I believe you, but if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here for that too." His tone changed to a lighter one. "In the meantime, you're getting to be about that age, what kind of hot tail are you keeping your eyes on lately? I heard there's French exchange students there this semester, rawr."

Harry laughed, settling into the couch in front of the fire. "Never change, Sirius."

"Never plan to," he declared.

They talked for a while longer about random topics: classes, other students, the encounters Sirius had experienced on his island retreat. Partyway through the conversation, Ron came down and they started talking about quidditch and what kind of food they served in Barbados, which then lead to a conversation what it would take to convince the House Elves that they should serve it in the Great Hall one of these days.

By the time the first rays of sunshine marked the following dawn, when everyone had begun to yawn a bit too long, they ended the floo call and hobbled off to bed. But even falling asleep almost before his head hit the pillow, there was a warmth in Harry's chest he couldn't remember being there before.

He slept with a smile on his face that whole night, and when he woke up the next morning, tired but still grinning, he felt like he could handle whatever new trouble Luna could send his way.

"Looks like someone's out of the funk he was in earlier," Luna whispered, sitting down beside him in the Great Hall as Dumbledore made the morning's announcements. There weren't announcements every day, but between some manner of housekeeping and administration or just reminders for upcoming tests or quidditch games, it happened at least once a month, so Harry was only half listening as he turned to Luna.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm still furious at you," he clarified, still smiling. "But without you, I don't think I'd ever be able to talk to Sirius again, so, thanks."

Luna looked surprised for a moment, then gave a beaming grin. "Well you can be furious or thank me all you want, no matter what you do, I'll continue to be quite cruel to you."

Harry shook his head, chuckling softly. "Yeah, you do that." Harry started portioning the food in front of him out on a plate, glad the announcements were apparently over and it was time to eat. It took him a moment or two, as he chewed on a bit of sausage, to realize the entire Great Hall was quiet, and everyone was staring at him with pale faces and gaping expressions. He looked left and right, but it seemed the entirety of all three schools were staring directly at him. "What?"

"Ahem," a prim throat clearing came from behind him, and he spun to stare up at Fleur Delacour, looking at him with eyes half-lidded in amusement. "Monsieur Potter, per'aps you did not 'ear me?"

"Uh, no." He carefully put his fork back on the plate. "Sorry, could you say again?"

"The Yule Ball," she elucidated. "I asked you to take me."

Now it was Harry's turn to gape, shooting a glance at Luna who could only shrug helplessly in response. "This one isn't me," she confessed.

Fleur raised an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest. "I am not very patient, 'Arry Potter, and would like to eat soon. A simple 'yes' or 'no' would be très bon."

Any thought in Harry's mind of Ginny or Bill didn't quite reach him. This was understandable as any thought in Harry's mind at all didn't reach him, short circuited by the impossibility of the situation. So instead of saying something like, 'why ask me,' or, 'isn't there some redheaded cursebreaker you'd rather be with,' he said the only thing that seemed to make sense.

"Uh, yes. Yeah, that'd be... that'd be great."

She nodded with a satisfied expression, spinning on her heel to walk away. "You will dance. I will teach you," were her parting words.

"Huh," Harry said as she left and conversation slowly began filtering into the Great Hall once more. "Luna, during all these repeats you've done, going into the past, saving people, doing all that, have I ever ended up with Fleur?"

"Harry, what you have to realize, is that I've run through some version of these circumstances a number of times you'd find unfathomable. Any occurrence you can think to happen has inevitably already happened somewhere, and if it has, I've seen it," Luna explained, nibbling a piece of bacon.

Harry picked up his fork again and started eating. "Oh, so it's happened a lot?"

"No, you've ended up with Draco Malfoy way more times, the numbers aren't even comparable."

Harry choked on his food.


End file.
